The Associated Press reported today on a study published in the August issue of Archives of Suicide Research:

 A movie analysis shows depictions of explicit and graphic suicides tripled from 1950 to 2006. An analysis by Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center of 855 top box office films also says there's no difference between PG-13- and R-rated films in the most explicit portrayals of suicide. Lead author Patrick Jamieson says the researchers can't establish a definite link but the tripling of U.S. teen suicides since 1960 has coincided with the increase in movie suicide portrayals.

I don't know how powerful movies really are in this regard. There is, however, research that shows suicide can run in families, but whether it's a negative role-modeling issue or a genetic predisposition to family depression is a subject of debate.

Whatever the reasons, sad all around.

(Archive AP photo of actresses, from left, Leslie Hayman, Kirsten Dunst, A.J. Cook and Chelse Swain appear in Sofia Coppola's "The Virgin Suicides" a dark comedy about five doomed sisters and the teen-age boys who worship them.)

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